Interpol joins Litvinenko murder probe: Russia office chief

Moscow, Dec 12 (UNI) The Interpol Russian National Central Bureau has joined the investigation by Russian, British and German teams into the murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko.

''Such interaction has been launched because several countries are now involved in the investigation,'' head of the Interpol Russian Bureau Timur Lakhonin said at a press conference today.

Teams from British Scotland Yard and the Russian Prosecutor General's Office are already investigating Litvinenko murder case in Moscow and London where he died of radiation poisoning with polonium-210 on November 23.

Two key Russian witnesses, businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun who met with Litvinenko in a London hotel shortly before he was hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning, are themselves undergoing radiation checks in Moscow.

Kovtun has already been diagnosed with radiation poisoning and Lugovoi's test results will be released by the end of the week, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Recently, police in Germany found traces of polonium-210 in several locations in Hamburg, where Kovtun's former wife and mother-in-law live.

Lakhonin said he was also hopeful about Chechen rebel emissary Akhmed Zakayev, wanted in Russia on terrorism charges, and Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, charged with embezzlement and sedition, will be extradited to Russia from London before long.

Berezovsky and Zakayev, who have been granted political asylum in Britain, were reportedly close friends of Litvinenko.

Lakhotin also called for the extradition of oligarchs Leonid Nevzlin, former co-owner of the bankrupt oil company Yukos, and Vladimir Gusinsky, a media tycoon and founder of Media Most and the NTV television channel.

Nevzlin and Gusinsky, who built their fortunes during post-Soviet Russia's mass privatization campaign in the 1990s and then fled the country to escape prosecution for alleged fraud, have in recent years been living in self-imposed exile in Israel.

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